Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has told the youth of the State that ‘taking up arms’ or giving a call for independent state’ are no longer relevant to the present day. He has accused the imperialist forces of  misleading the youth. Addressing a seminar on “Militancy and it’s solution’ organised by College Teachers Association, the Chief Minister said imperialist forces who could not be happy with the independence of   the country were overtly and covertly indulging in secessionist activities.

Manik Sarkar said the imperialist forces were taking advantage of a few factors like prolonged deprivation and backwardness of the state and were inciting some disgruntled forces     to take up arms. “It is quite irrelevant and unjustified that    some youth of the State are    taking up arms for independent  state on the pretext of finding a solution to the prolonged deprivation and neglect,” he remarked.

The chief minister said that    the North-Eastern region     remained backward and neglected since the British period and even the Congress did not take up developmental work during its 45-year rule. He appealed to the insurgents
to come to the negotiating table   and find a solution to their    problem within the framework of the Constitution.

The Tripura Chief Minister also informed that his Government was the  only one in North-East which had given a detailed report to  the Centre on terrorist training camps in Bangladesh. He said that the State  government on a number of occasions had urged the Centre to take up the matter with the Bangladesh Government and have these camps demolished. The strength of BSF, deployed in the State was not adequate to guard the 840-km-long porous India-Bangladesh border and the insurgents were entering Tripura taking advantage of the situation, Mr. Sarkar said. Though the State had been repeatedly demanding border fencing, only seven km area was fenced so far. He said the State Government was ready to take up the border fencing project if Centre extended necessary assistance.

Rejected: A no-confidence motion jointly moved by the Opposition Congress and Indigenous National Party of Tripura (INPT) against ruling CPI-M-led Left Front on charges of corruption was defeated by voice votes in Tripura Assembly.

Leader of the Opposition, Jahar Saha who moved the motion alleged that the brazen corruption of the ministers was being exposed every day and they have indulged in nepotism and selling jobs. As a result development works have come to a hault in rural areas.

Nagendra Jamatiya alleged that the special police officers (SPO) appointed by the governemnt to      help the regular police were working in the rural areas as         per instructions of the ruling party cadres and were harassing the  Opposition workers and their supporters.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar denied the charge of corruption against his government and said that the Opposition parties were alienated from the masses due to their negative attitude towards the development works of the government.

The Chief Minister claimed that Tripura was a front runner in implementing Central Governemnt projects and in many cases it   scored as number one in   the country. Mr. Sarkar said that his government also achieved good success in containing insurgency and added 144 extremists were killed, 441 insurgents arrested and 507 extremists surrendered in the last four-and-half years of the Left Front rule.

Among others Finance Minister Badal Chaudhuri, Educatiion Minister Anil Sarkar and Food Minister Gopal Das spoke against the motion while Ratan Lal Nath (Cong) and Rabindra Debbarma (INPT) spoke in support.